Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A "Special" Tribute to China


By now, most of you have probably seen or heard about the ad by Spain's Olympic basketball team, well here it is, in all its glory. C'mon now, how messed up is this? All my life I grew up with this crap of "slanted eyes" and people pulling their eyelids to the side of their face and mocking Asian people. Not cool. And now to have an OLYMPIC TEAM do this in the media for the whole world to see? Best of all, mocking the host country of the Olympics? I'm just so amazed at how people don't think about these things and see nothing wrong about it. One of the players said, "We did it because we thought it was going to be something nice, something with no problem." Something nice? Are you kidding me? How is this nice at all? It's straight up disrespectful. I'm really curious to know how this racist gesture would even come close to being "nice". What kind of tribute to the Chinese is this? Get some sense guys...

Thursday, May 29, 2008

"More Flags, More Fun!" ...More Ignorance




This new Six Flags commercial that has been recently circulating has really started to bother me more and more each time I see it. When I first saw it, I cringed, because it was obviously poking fun at the Asian community. First and foremost, I see the message and point of view the ignorant Six Flags corporation and advertisement people are trying to portray with this "humor", but the path they chose to do so is unacceptable. There are many other routes they could have gone to get people to go to their amusement park, but they decided to make fun of the Asian community. Sad thing is that this ignorant commercial scheme is going to work and thousands of people will flock to Six Flags. Something even more sad is the fact that the majority of people who watch this commercial will laugh and not even realize the harm and discrimination it helps to perpetuate. The Asian guy, of course, has an accent and does not properly pronounce the words correctly. He doesn't even speak in complete sentences! He just barks out short phrases. I don't know about you, but that's pretty damn racist. What message does this portray to society? That Asian people don't know how to speak proper English, they can't formulate sentences, they have accents, they make fools of themselves...etc. We want more Asian representation in the media, but damn if this is all we're going to get, then forget it. The saying goes something like "Bad publicity is still publicity"...fuck that. This only furthers the stereotypes of Asian people and we really don't need this. This damn commercial puts us back a few years. It tries to play off of the Japanese commercials where the guy pops up (just as this guy does) and sells a product. How often have we seen this type of satire? LOTS. Now Six Flags is taking this ignorance nationwide, helping to deliver this stereotypical portrayal of Asians into households everywhere! Please go to the nearest television set to get the complete experience! ...I'm not gonna lie, I've been to Six Flags, fun amusement park...but Fuck You Six Flags and your damn Commercial.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Sad Reality



So a friend just told me to watch this random youtube video called "Kiwi" and damn was I in for a surprise. I wasn't expecting this crazy shit. At first I was like, what the hell is she making me watch and I was tempted to fast forward the whole thing. It was mad weird, then as it was nearing its end, I was like...OMG wtf is going on...and BAM the bird died! It freakin committed suicide! Was not expecting this at all...I thought it was gonna be some happy lil animated thing...but I was wrong. Once I stepped back for a moment and tried to take it all in, I was deeply saddened by the message it portrayed. Basically, an outcast (a flightless bird) wanting to conform to society by any means possible, but inevitable could not, and committed suicide. Wanting to fly its entire life, it created this whole complex scenario (attaching trees to the side of a mountain) as its final time before it killed itself. Wanting to reenact what its been striving to accomplish its whole life, it jumps to its death, fulfilling his dreams as it reaches its end. So much damn symbolism and meaning behind this very short clip. You can relate this to life today in the world, how people try to fit into society and conform to its standard. It's just so damn impossible and hard that people get frustrated and do crazy things. The world can be a cruel place. This youtube video does not even need words to describe it, it does a good job on its own. With its peaceful/creepy music...to the tears of the bird as it plummets to its death...take a step back and really think about what this is about.